oFlounder pound nets will be subject to a 5 ¾-inch escape panel and will operate under a Total Allowable Landings of 38 percent reductions based on 2011-2015 pound net landings. The Total Allowable Landings will be based on the water body where the pound nets are set, as presented by DMF by February 2016 meeting (assumes that the Total Allowable Landings equals the Total Allowable Catch).

oCommercial gig fishery will close when Total Allowable Landings is met.

oRecreational hook-and-line and gig fisheries will close Oct. 16-Dec. 31

You can look at this chart and see how recruitment overfishing has truncated the age and size structure over time.

15" = 381mm

14" = 356mm

There are a lot of flounder that were kept at 14" that will not be kept this year with a 15" minimum size limit. We as recreational anglers know how hard it is to land a 15"+ flounder. That fact alone will keep the gear in the water longer than the data above suggests. The season may never close if there is much "gaming" that goes on.

The flounder stock has been fished so low, it may take years for it to recover with proper management, and management is not there yet. There is a good possibility of the need for further cuts. The southern flounder fishery is a prime candidate for limited entry. Pound nets are already there due to the gear cost and permitting requirements. The gig fishery is so small that it will be easily managed. We will get an anchored large mesh gill net ban in NC. When that happens, this fishery needs to go to limited entry with assigned quota pounds to individual fishermen based on individual trip ticket landing data. Those that game the system now, will be left out in the future. The tragedy of commons says they will not be able to help themselves from gaming the system.

Those individual quotas should belong to the state and be assigned to the fisherman. When that fisherman retires, his assigned quota should be removed from the commercial side and given back to the resource unless there are commercial fishermen asking for a pound net permit or a gigging permit. Those individual quota pound and permits should be assigned from the state at fair market value. The actual gear should be the retiring fisherman's property to sell.

That system can be gamed as well.

Simple fix- If you violate the rules your permit is suspended for one year with total gear removal required. You violate the rules again and your permit is permanently revoked and your gear must be removed from the permit site.

I am not agreeing, or disagreeing, with the individual quota system, but in the event that it does happen, those quotas should go to fishermen in boats, and not for sale or tranfer. Not to fish house owners, or any other individuals or corporations, who buy them up and make a profit out of subletting or leasing them. Use it or lose it, back to the state pool.

"You can never elevate your own character by stepping on someone else's."

Rick - were the landings in that report including the "corrected" numbers or was it prior to the "correction?"

That I can't answer for certain, but given the date on the presentation linked above I would say these are the "uncorrected" numbers.

From the news letter below, the correction is a 4% increase. A 4% overall increase changes the total quota to 443,573 from 426,513.

NCDMF uses an axe as the sampling tool and measures the results with a micrometer. What the heck does 4% matter in this game of imprecision? That's assuming that 4% is an accurate number for the corrected increase.

Maybe someone can ask Kathy Rawls for the corrected numbers.

From a NCFA News Letter:

o Landings Corrections:
During the development of the recent flounder pound net quota, several
commercial fishermen were concerned that the pound net harvest was under
reported resulting in a smaller quota. Some commercial fishermen
reported that landings of flounder from their trips were incorrectly
recorded as being from gill net gear and not pound net gear. Staff sent
out 163 certified mail letters on May 27, 2016. Shortly after the
letters were mailed and delivered, staff started receiving calls from
fishermen asking about the letter and how they needed to proceed.
Fishermen were instructed to review the data mailed to them and send any
potential corrections to Trip Ticket staff. Some fishermen visited
their seafood dealers about corrections and received signed letters from
the dealers attesting the use of flounder pound nets and gill nets.
Several fishermen worked with the Trip Ticket Program’s commercial port
agents to review the data and determine the appropriate corrections.
Corrections were also verified with Marine Patrol officers who were
familiar with the fishing practices of many of the fishermen as well as
confirmed with fisheries management biological sampling staff. Once
corrections were identified, data were edited by Trip Ticket staff. The
Trip Ticket Program received the last set of corrections from fishermen
on July 1, 2016. Corrections primarily focused on gear codes changes
(e.g., gill nets being corrected to poundnets) and some incorrect
license numbers. In total, the division received corrections from 16
commercial fishermen. The corrections resulted in an overall increase of
4 percent for the total southern flounder pound net quota. Quota
Monitoring Group 2 saw the largest increase in the quota when looking at
specific groups, increasing by 22 percent. Quota Monitoring Group 6
also saw a slight increase of 7 percent. Quota Monitoring Group 5 saw a
very slight decline in their quota amount of roughly 1 percent. There
were no changes for Quota Monitoring Groups 1 or 4.

Chuck, what is the official word on landing an ocean caught 'summer flounder' after Oct. 16? Do any of the proclamations, or other official documents closing the fishery just say flounder, or do they specify southern flounder?

"You can never elevate your own character by stepping on someone else's."

Glacier...I thought we asked DMF officers this last December after the vote and were told that if you had a flounder on board west of the demarcation line you would get a violation since NC manages southern and summer flounder, not by species specific, but where they are in ones possession. You could, for an example, be ok fishing on an ocean pier, but if you had jigged a wreck and then were floating an inlet on the way back in for anything with those flounder on board you'd be subject to the closure. Obviously the intent was to close everything, why would we save the fish on the inside to merely catch them on the outside where they are going to spawn during this period. I sat right there and was amazed the DMF staff did not point that out to the MFC....biologists should have picked up on that first before gubernatorial appointees. I would have hoped the MFC would have done a "technical correction" and cleaned this up, but you and I both know that if anyone had suggested modifying what was passed in any way that the doors to major change would have flooded open. Not perfect, but best ever as is so let's not screw it up and wait for stock assessment next year where the best of what we have done can be made permanent and corrections made if the assessment merits.

Rick....as we discussed yesterday. I'm still saying the law of averages on data based solely on weight which is what the DMF has always used already has weather events, size changes, etc. built into the numbers. The cutoff is going to be four or five days either side of November 1 for pound nets in total. Not even going to try on regions.

Also...the folks making sure they get credit for proper gear know the future. Limited entry is coming and any fisherman not recording his/her catches now will suffer greatly when those numbers are the basis for a personal quota. No one to blame but themselves if they were to lose out for their own actions down the road.

Edited by Ray Brown - 01 September 2016 at 12:51pm

I am a native of NC. The "bycatch captial of the east coast of the US". Our legislature lets us kill more fish for no reason than any other Atlantic Coast state. I hope they are proud.

I'll go out on a limb and say that there will be no closure for them at all. Why? Tropical storms, small fish, fish too large, divine intervention, there will be a 'reason' that they cant meet their quota and they need to keep fishing.

I'll go out on a limb and say that there will be no closure for them at all. Why? Tropical storms, small fish, fish too large, divine intervention, there will be a 'reason' that they cant meet their quota and they need to keep fishing.

Look at this daily landings in pounds chart during the 1998 season. In one day there were approximately 170,000 pounds landed in the pound net fishery. That is almost 40% of the current quota landed in one day.

Eyeballing an Oct/Nov average, it appears to be in the 30K daily range.

How can anyone look at this chart and not expect the pound net season to close some time during mid-October? But then you have to factor in the group area closures mentioned above.

Chuck, what is the official word on landing an ocean caught 'summer flounder' after Oct. 16? Do any of the proclamations, or other official documents closing the fishery just say flounder, or do they specify southern flounder?

It is my understanding that "flounder" brought to the dock from Pamlico Point or AR 330 (past the 3 mile limit) on Oct 16 of 2016 will earn a citation for reasons Ray referred to above.

I'll go out on a limb and say that there will be no closure for them at all. Why? Tropical storms, small fish, fish too large, divine intervention, there will be a 'reason' that they cant meet their quota and they need to keep fishing.

Look at this daily landings in pounds chart during the 1998 season. In one day there were approximately 170,000 pounds landed in the pound net fishery. That is almost 40% of the current quota landed in one day.

Eyeballing an Oct/Nov average, it appears to be in the 30K daily range.

How can anyone look at this chart and not expect the pound net season to close some time during mid-October? But then you have to factor in the group area closures mentioned above.

True I guess. People have never tried to play the system in our fisheries... no no no. BTW anybody know how that 9yo girl is doing this season?

Chuck....gross landing information is public record. The DMF is to obtain daily reporting thus I'm sure they are running a total daily for YTD southern flounder harvest in total and by gear.

As a member of the MFC, could you request that the DMF send you a daily report of the pound net YTD total and then you place that number here daily so any citizen of NC who has interest will know the current count without having to have dozens of phones calls or emails to the DMF daily seeking the same information? While most here can multiply and divide the idea of stating what percent of the annual quota has been landed to date would be nice too.

Thank you in advance for making this happen.

(If they don't want to furnish you this information for this purpose then ask them to simply place it on their website daily for public consumption if they want to handle it totally by themselves. With their responsibility there is no doubt they are computing these running totals daily and the public does have a right to know where the quota stands. Obviously results through yesterday are perfectly ok. It doesn't have to be live.)

Edited by Ray Brown - 08 September 2016 at 12:15pm

I am a native of NC. The "bycatch captial of the east coast of the US". Our legislature lets us kill more fish for no reason than any other Atlantic Coast state. I hope they are proud.

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